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Death or Glory: Another Jose Reyes Story

“From every dingy basement, on every dingy street/
Every dragging handclap over every dragging beat/
It’s just the beat of time, the beat that must go on/
If you’ve been trying for years, we ‘ready heard your song”

~ The Clash, “Death or Glory”

Unless you’ve been under a rock, you must know that a giant movement has risen out of support for our shortstop, Jose Reyes. And why not? He’s young, exciting, one of the best in baseball, and easily a tough guy to replace.

But what’s the REAL reason we don’t want to see him go?

If I had to make a decision, gun to back, about where I thought Jose Reyes would be after the trade deadline, I’d say he would be on the Mets. I think Carlos Beltran is a goner. I think K-Rod wants to go. I also think that Mike Pelfrey may be shopped around for a change of scenery. But Jose Reyes? I think he stays (signing an extension…that’s another story).

Today, Sean Hartnett makes a case as to why the Mets should trade Jose Reyes. I don’t see why any team would want to trade Jose Reyes, unless he was a cancer which it’s clear he is not. Plus, if the Mets did trade him, there is a multi-level reason why. Other teams might sense desperation, and not give them what he’s worth (especially regarding a half-year rental). It may be purely for money reasons, but he’s not being paid THAT MUCH.

It would be enticing, you know, to see what we could get for him. I’m not ADVOCATING a trade, I’m just asking, “What if?” There’s no way it would be prospects, we’d have good major league ready talent. Would they replace the production of Jose Reyes though? Who knows? But he’s at a premium position, he’s a leadoff hitter and he’s just so loveable. It’s no wonder we don’t want to see him go, but there is an underlying reason why.

Again, I ask, what is the REAL reason we wouldn’t want to see him go?

I’ll tell you what it is: we would be facing our own demise, the Mets demise, the demise of our interest in the team. That may sound dramatic, but to some, that could be an option.

If the Mets were to trade Jose Reyes, more so than Beltran (easily the best hitter on the team right now), more so than K-Rod (let’s face it: we can groom Bobby Parnell to be the closer of the future and have Jason Isringhausen fill in for the rest of the season), more so than Mike Pelfrey (I love him and most homegrown talent, but his time may be ticking), they would be conceding defeat.

They’d be saying, “We are not going to compete and we are officially in rebuild mode.”

But to think that Jose Reyes is part of the problem and NOT part of the solution, that’s just crazy. To write an article as Hartnett did this morning just to rile up an already intense and stressed fan base is also insane.

But we need to think about what if Reyes gets traded and the fall-out from that.

I won’t walk away from the team I have supported since I was seven…but would it be refreshing to know which direction they plan to go in: rebuild or play now?

Perhaps it’s a combination of both, if the other more expensive pieces get moved around, then we’ll have something interesting to watch. Without Jose Reyes though, I can see why people are scared. What else is there to watch? Please spare me the whole Wilmer Flores is the shortstop of the future. Just stop it, he’s not!

Jose Reyes represents our hopes and fears as a Mets fan. To have him be traded is the least hopeful scenario and the worst of our fears. To have him leave in the offseason might be more palatable because at least then we knew we tried.

Will Jose Reyes lead to the death of the franchise? Or a part of the glory? It’s clear he must be part of the glory. Death is not an option.

I won’t bail on the team if he goes…but it will be tough to watch unless there is some payoff involved.